Quizon’s Game

BY JAY BAUTISTA |

Alter Ego

For the living imagination of visual artist Marvin Quizon, it has always been the struggle between rationality and passion--a bitter war against maneuvering clichés—ever since he started mixing paints on canvas for seven years now. His third solo exhibition, Interception, culminates with finality what has been evenly fought for in his previous two exhibitions dealing deeply on positive realizations of pain and suffering like flowers emanating from a rubble.

With the extended lockdown looming at large, Quizon’s sense of time resulted in a moment of temporal unity for these binary opposing forces. Against a contemporary art scene of restlessness, churning out paintings after paintings in every auction, art fair or biennale that comes along, Quizon offers a pregnant pause of the sublime in these six paintings.

There is something in the midst of Bulacan that transposes a poetic element in Quizon. Even with a short distance from Manila, the allure of the province draws the melancholic and even recluses like him. The vast expanse of the remaining rice fields or sudden change of the season—that misty still unpolluted air while cumulative clouds slowly parade—allows one to find sanctuary and immediately seek contemplation. This lieu seems much more conducive to creative people such as musicians, writers more so hungry young artists.

Interception

Quizon visualizes purposely how the mind and heart interchangeably return to their constant engagement in the self-titled Interception--a work on paper with three-dimensional cut outs. With radical and energetic determination, Quizon has roamed freely from that conventional into an internal existence of wonder and fantasy. Using tentacles to symbolize the enticing even teasing flirtations of the consciousness, Quizon philosophically quizzes the viewer how man can surrender to himself, give in to temptation, and ultimately succumb to overthinking in a single arrested development.

We are oftentimes hapless victim of our own faulting that we create our own tentacles that continue to rob us blind leaving us in misery. We are trapped by our own making or even our hands become the very tentacles that wallow us. There are times Quizon gets utterly torn as to what his mind says from what his heart feels although deep within he has already made up his heart. Shown in The Antagonist as it tips the scale for once with the brain overwhelmed by his tempting limbs. The figurative brain forms the subliminal octopus which has the ability to protect, defend, overarching itself to cling on something it focuses itself into.

Discordant Comfort Zone

Although everything exists in the brain our deepest desire, and ultimate longing is what our heart wants. The brain is physical while the heart is your soul. The fictitious tentacles envelope the man even becoming the man himself in Alter Ego making it the closest portrait Quizon can depict the blatant personified quagmire he becomes.

In Discordant Comfort Zone Quizon configures idleness as a solitary enemy. Lounging is a feeling of repose, a vacated sofa lingers comfortably while his creativity is held hostage. Done in raw sepia-finish, one is seemingly invited to jump in the comforting pillow-like palm of a giant.

Everyday reality has been distorted, exaggerated, brought to excess, dressed up and supplanted. Time Intercepted is evident to the mechanical call to order by a clock. In his profound solitude Quizon produces exemplary parallelism in counting an infinity of the little hours while painting in lockdown, he reduces the brain to logical rationality and the heart to its purely visual function. It is necessary to purge thought of all that is not in relation to ideas, ridding it of all the myths with which the senses overlay the truth.

Quizon interprets the uncanny in surrealist brushstrokes as Nature of Mind and Soul is a masterpiece rendered in a dream-like manner. In what he interprets as an experiment in psychological layering, found at the dead aim center is a man caught in flames signifying he is in a peril state of saturation. The confusion overwhelms him on whether to be rational or hear the pulsating beat of his heart. The resolution remains evident by the where flowers in bloom.

Time Intercepted

Quizon favors ongoing dialogues of strange objects into a new visual language. These explorations of incongruousness in existence are often highlighted by intricate details and unusual perspectives. Notice the brain and how it is highlighted to represent knowledge. It is inherent that we think what is right for us through where the light leads us. Often he distorts his space using hyperrealism marked by rustic finish and in raw and limited monotone palette often depicting his mood. Quizon is fond of depicting symbols, allegories and odd juxtaposes of objects. The heart is in a dim part but it still glows as it grows. Proof that the heart wants what it wants, it is the soul that benefits. Quizon has even left ample space in the foreground for the viewers to interlude as Quizon opens up the invitation to look intently on the canvas. There is an open clamor as the viewer could even get burned by his fatal indecision.

Compared to his contemporaries, Quizon prefers his slow creative process to be long and arduous. Quizon paints everyday leaving only a day to regain his momentum. He usually does rough sketches and writes his thoughts. He continues with unfinished studies as he conceptualizes further on canvas. Quizon is organic in approach that he usually ends up adding from what his initial studies were. He accepts this as his visual style—a way of surrendering into his subconscious. Sometimes Quizon ends up with a different yet more improved version of his initial studies.

The Antagonist

He then proceeds to photograph his references even edits them in his computer as he is well-versed to be. He proceeds to layer his oil paints how the way masters like his influence Rembrandt of the 17^th century Dutch Golden Age does it. He finishes off by color glazing much like the way his fellow artists from Bulacan do theirs as well.

Upon careful reflection on his pieces, Quizon subdues his colors to suit his intended emotions. Quizon is an old soul at barely 26 years old, his commitment to his craft and his pursuit for artistic emancipation reflects within his soft-spoken character. In the end, he believes we can love completely without even complete understanding.

Nature of Mind and Soul

Interception by Marvin Quizon is an ongoing virtual exhibition at the Art Cube Gallery. It can be viewed through Art Steps. Log on to artsteps.com/download the Artsteps App.

Don Bryan Bunag: Stranger Things

BY JAY BAUTISTA |

There are places I'll remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone, and some remain

In My Life

The Beatles

For his 5^th solo exhibition, Sa Tabon, Don Bryan Bunag returns home once more. Picking up from where he left off in his first show, he becomes more personal and dwells deeper by capturing bygone scenes that reprise meaningful stages in his life.  

Situated in Bulacan, Bulacan, Baranggay San Francisco is what is popularly known as Tabon. It used to be vast expanses of fields where farming sustained the people living there. For the longest time, Tabon maintained its rural culture--which came alive only when a religious procession is being observed or a local carnival is set up--to mark its annual festivities. Away from his parents, Bunag grew up here when grandmother took him under her loving care as he was about to attend pre-school. Spending his entire formative years with his extended family and life-long friends, Bunag was accustomed living simple way in a rustic manner.  

Compared to his contemporaries in the art scene--whose fascination revolves around the floral, the grotesque and the macabre--Bunag does not want to be boxed in a format or be loud with his brushstrokes. His visual style may be academic with processes influenced by Titian, Rubens and Rembrandt, he prefers and is well- versed with fleeting moments and impermanence of nostalgia evoking silence. The ambience of Tabon sets this tone for the exhibit depicting memory with what was familiar and ethereal for this award winning visual artist.

Tabon series are eighteen scenarios--each capturing the meaningful moments Bunag got to spend around people in his most sensitive self and what was most memorable to him. He reminisces his time spent perched on a tree with his sister or on a swing while flying kites with friends; his riding bicycles, playing basketball and swimming in the pristine rivers of Tabon are faintly recorded.

His intimate bonding activities with his family such going to mass or being carried just to touch Jesus’s feet in a chapel wrought by his mother’s abiding spirituality can also be witnessed. Even how his grandfather brings him to school and taught him to play the drums are informally documented. He once saw an old farm with a herd of lambs sparked on him the dream of having the same space to take care of such genteel flock.

Typical to the young and melancholic Bunag he was often seen laying on the ground looking at the heavens—sometimes on a fence, in a bench or lying on the grass whiling away his time, observing the images formed in the clouds. His own quiet time is also impressed upon here—staring at a pond or looking up in the sky while imagining things--are mutely embedded. These were his initial manifestations of the kind of art practice he is espousing now.

Done in loose textures of impressionism, there is evident stillness in Bunag’s subjects--with only a hint of figuration involved—as if he leaves to his viewers to situate themselves in them. Only the truly experienced artists like Bunag could impart a mood piece, which is quite universal to the viewer, yet leave something distinct into them. Each work is anecdotal, rich in meaning and symbolisms--an ode to time and how it moves together with the heavens all at the same time. Placed side by side on shelves, they are like one long reel of film marked by Bunag’s own passage of realities. He has adopted filmmaker’s tools in these small paintings marked with cinematic aesthetics.

Bunag left Tabon when his grandmother died and he was a year short of graduation in 2012. When Bunag came back early this year he could barely recognize the sense of place Tabon was. Prodding him to question: Can one physically leave a place yet preserve how it once was in one’s own memory?

The encroaching vines and tall grass represent Bunag as he saw himself in the lush vegetation grown through time as depicted Tabon 1 with him in mind—a kind of portrait of Bunag as foliage. Bunag was waxing sentimental upon seeing how much Tabon has changed since he last been to it. Tabon 3 is a mossy testament to that--an ode to the last remaining lot beside the factory in Tabon. It speaks of the plight of Tabon it is purposely misaligned to connote much change.  

Tabon 2 remains the mysterious gate where old people were saying a Chinese lived beyond the wall from the gate. He was warned whoever trespasses will be killed. Until this day Bunag has not unravel if the story is just a myth since he saw rust already eating the gate and untended grass has embraced it--only shows no one has entered it after a long time.

After a well-thought-of process Bunag likely starts with a sketch—sometimes hurriedly as his hand tries to keeps up with his imagination. Then he channels them on tweed fabric. For two years now Bunag favors how acrylic is reflected upon it. A signature Bunag is the monotony of a single color--what was once sepia has now become more basic in charcoal gray. What is more important to Bunag is the narrative of the story than any suggestive hue.

Layering like old school classical painting, Bunag usually prefers water-based paints having started out as a watercolorist. He favors acrylic and graphite as under painting to glazing. Sometimes finishing off with oil paint. His work typically has 7-9 layers depending on the different tones of consistencies. Each layer has an effect--he wants it raw and textured in strokes in the end.

Tabon 1

Bunag relied most of these Tabon images to his memory since most of the locations he is familiar with no longer exist--giving emphasis on unmediated sentimentality. It is only now that Bunag realized he left Tabon but it did not leave him. He wanted to depict Tabon of yore in the sincerest way and most mature rendering since he started painting. He wanted a room full of memories and he has done that. More than the lost rice fields and pristine rivers he wanted to capture Tabon as a feeling, as a mood like a longing sigh or and accidental swoon, as if he feels for the viewer. At a young age he is already an old soul by how he has gathered a plethora of memories to paint them in a lifetime.

For now, Bunag is finally home—as if he never left.

Arel Zambarrano: The Need for Needles

BY JAY BAUTISTA |

After a decade of art practice, ushering into a new chapter in his life Arel Zambarrano consistently continues from where he left off. For his third exhibition this 32-year old Ilonggo hones deeper into his craft and parlays his imaginative prowess by focusing on himself and in being most personal this time. The kind of act cleanses himself further as in his own words: “to overcome his inner demons.” 

Juggling many responsibilities Zambarrano does not have the luxury of time as he had before, as a new father, he now owes to his family their food and shelter and to his community being an architect yet he perceives belonging to a bigger society in humanity as an artist. For him art is not a way to make a living, rather it is a very human way of making life more bearable.

In Unlimited Optimism he renews this commitment and redefines himself more--what artistic path to take, his strengths and inner courage, dwelling more on self-discovery. His greatest ally has been his belief in himself that no one can help you except to be self-reliant to function more effectively and being true to your artistic philosophy.

At an early age when other kids were collectively playing along the seaside of Banate, one would find him drawing on the sand along the shores using a broom stick. The ethereal experience of his visual images being washed away by the waves excited him. At this early, though the living was rough and uncertain then, he wanted to create great structures of imagination and realized to be an artist someday.

Depicting needles on canvas has come a long way since 2007 when these represented all his hard-earned years as a self-supporting student of architecture in college. Needles will eventually connote his struggles, as well as triumphs in life. Being dirt poor didn’t hinder him, it is his belief that we all have needles in our lives, in many forms some too irritating to handle-be it hurdles, thorns, even in being too sensitive. Yet this too shall pass, hope remains for pain is the evidence of life.  

How Zambarrano unassailably survived from the pits is like an artistic pilgrimage to him. Allowing his gut and following his footsteps, his art has been autobiographical evoking himself in every painting with resemblance of himself in allegories by constant juxtaposing and careful composition he has constantly mastered. Zambarrano visually records his milestones and journeys through these protracted often surreal images.

Flexible Nerves series are ongoing witnesses to these revelations that occurred in his short and oftentimes topsy-turvy existence. His dragonflies are often constricted by red strings is a metaphor for change as they represent energy and enthusiasm eschewing pessimism and resentment. A venus fly trap is a reminder that everything comes at a particular time and space. Everything in life is enriching and rewarding. The eventuality of the pieces is an almost disruptive, caught-in-the-moment, uneasy depiction to bear. There is an alliterated meaning justifying every happening to his life. Beneath the thick oil paint in the back ground are his inner reflections. The shaft of the needle is a sturdy and blunted straight line encouraging the viewer to be brave under any circumstance. Done in pure oil paint, with no aid of sketch, like a versed prescient storyteller all these pieces have been painted like riddles in his mind before he set out to feature them on canvas. Every Zambarrano piece is rich in allegory as it is often laden with moral values and positive vibes. He has trained us to take long and hard to look and imbibe them.

In the Black Garden with Unlimited Optimism is a fitting centerpiece for its immensity and sheer attention to details. We are overwhelmed by the volume of needles each painted with a special thought in mind. Here art is more of a process. It is more of the evolving ephemerality that ignited him to accomplish this. One can unravel the long and arduous contemplation that underwent while physically rendering it on canvas.   

A committed spiritual man, Zambarrano may not be religious yet he was quite affected by the parable of the needle: it is easier for a camel to enter the eye of the needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. A bleeding heart evoked at the dead center with its tentacle-like veins being entangled. Somewhat abstract in its portrayal while painting it he felt his aspirations for mankind unfolding. A brutally beautiful scene emerges for us to behold.

Those long slender tips in needles may be subversive for the fear of being pricked, or an unlikely site used in acupuncture for healing or even surgery, yet needles remind him also not to focus on earthly possessions but rather in basic human goodness. As an artist practicing in Iloilo, Zambarrano’s need for needles transcends him, making him cope with the earthbound burdens while at the same time displaying faith, joy and wholeness soaring into the end of his own quagmire. The brilliance of Zambarrano however embodies positivity as he prepares for bigger things to come his way. For him, artists are still highly valuable and constructive individuals in nation-building. Art is a revolting way of coping from life’s constant beatings and persecution. He feels obligated to foster art as his vocation in future.

Unlimited Optimism innately explores the intersection of Zambarrano’s life and his inventive interpretation morphed into relevant art. He is fulfilling himself so that others may be encouraged in attaining their new goals through his paintings. It is a genius solution to an ever bugging problem. Used to this existential routine, he just needs to embody optimism for himself firstly before others--to pay forward kindness and espousing hard-earned repurposed lessons over the years for everyone to get on his side.